Judge's ruling to come Friday

Hennepin County Judge Gary Larson is scheduled to release his order at 10 a.m. Friday on the motion of Vikings defensive tackles Kevin and Pat Williams to extend a ruling that temporarily blocks the NFL from suspending the pair for violating its anti-doping policy.

The Williamses want to keep an extension in place until they can appeal a recent ruling by Larson that would enable the league to suspend them for four games apiece.

Childress did not express great concern about the situation on Wednesday. "We've always kind of had that," Childress said when asked about a Plan B that would include Fred Evans, Jimmy Kennedy and Letroy Guion. "It's not like we are going to come out and defensive tackles are going to drop out of the sky.

"There's the guys on our football team and they understand with the number of guys that we have that those will be the first guys to step up. Will we need to go out and grab somebody else? That remains to be seen. Guion is maturing in there. Jimmy Kennedy, obviously, did a great job for us last year. Fred Evans played a little bit more in the system. Those are good players."

Update: There has been speculation the NFL might be willing to stagger the suspensions of the Williamses, meaning they would not have to sit out at the same time, but league spokesman Greg Aiello said in an e-mail that "there is no precedent for it" when asked if that might happen. Thus, it seems if the suspensions are enforced the two will be idle during the same four-game span.

Matt Vensel is in his first year at the Star Tribune after covering the Ravens for the Baltimore Sun for six years. He is a Pittsburgh native and a Penn State grad. Follow him at @mattvensel.

Mark Craig has covered the NFL for 23 years, and the Vikings since 2003 for the Star Tribune. He is one of 44 Pro Football Hall of Fame selectors. Follow him at @markcraignfl.

Master Tesfatsion is the Star Tribune’s digital Vikings writer. He is a 2013 graduate of Arizona State and worked for mlb.com before arriving in Minneapolis. Follow him at @masterstrib.